Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, social media managers have had a tool at their fingertips that can support and speed up their work.
In this post, I explain the most common tasks that ChatGPT can be used to simplify in the life of social media managers.
From the generation of posting ideas to the elaboration of concrete posts or preparation of existing content for social media – ChatGPT can be a sparring partner throughout the entire production process!
Generation of posting ideas
When there is no more produced content available for publishing, and you are not in a creative mood yourself, ChatGPT can be helpful to jumpstart you with inspiration.
It’s important to be detailed in your input to ChatGPT. For example: For which target group will these posts be created, or from which perspective (info about your company, your role, etc.) should they be created. This kind of information increases the quality of the results.
Example:
“I am a social media manager for a tour operator for trips to the Austrian Alps. I need ideas on creating content to promote a summer vacation in the Austrian Alps. Can you give me some topics?”
Tip: ChatGPT cannot output infinite text length. About 1500 words are the limit for a response from ChatGPT. This should not be a problem for social media content production in most cases. For example, if you want to generate “50 social media post ideas”, simply split your request into several prompts.
Elaboration of individual posts
Now let’s take one of the topic ideas and generate 3 social media posts.
Let’s do this generically first, without specifying the platform on which the post will be published.
Prompt: “Can you give me an example of 3 social media posts about the benefits of sustainable travel for point 3 – Adventure Sports”
Creation of platform-specific posts
The results will be better if you mention the target platform in the prompt, again, in addition to other details. You can also mention the character length, number of emojis, speech, and more in your prompt.
“Can you customize post #3 for me on Instagram? Suggest three hashtags. We’re on a first-name basis with our target audience.”
Customize the post for Linkedin with one prompt.
“On Linkedin, we are more formal with our target audience. Rewrite the post and make it more formal.”
Or turn your post in a Twitter thread.
“Can you please split the post to a Twitter thread. We’re on a first name basis. No hashtags.”
Content planning
A very common question asked of social media managers is the question of a content plan.
With ChatGPT you can quickly sketch out what a list of content ideas might look like spread out on the calendar over the next few weeks or months.
No problem, ChatGPT can generate a calendar view for you.
We use our fictional “tour operator Austrian Alps” example for this example. First, we asked ChatGTP to provide content topics, then provide some posting ideas for each topic.
Prompt: “Can you generate 3 posting titles for each of the 10 topic suggestions generated at the beginning of this conversation. Please structure the answer in topic title followed by post titles.”
Prompt: “Please present the list of content ideas as a content plan for July and August. In the tabular calendar view, add social media platform in parentheses.”
Of course, this is not a “real” usable content plan, but it can be the impetus for planning.
Prepare existing content for social media
Often you have existing content, e.g. blog posts, which you want to prepare for social media. ChatGPT can help you with that.
For this example, we use a Fresh van Root blog post. We ask ChatGPT to summarize the blog post “Best of the Fresh van Root Newsletter 2022” and formulate it for a LinkedIn post in the next step.
It should be noted that ChatGPT has a limit of 4000 characters for prompt input. That is about 500 words. This is usually insufficient to pack a complete blog post into the prompt. ChatGPT also cannot address Web Page URLs, or at least not in the free version.
But there is already a solution for this. With ChatGPT Plus, you get the possibility to use plugins in ChatGPT. AccessLink is one of several plugins that extends ChatGPT with the ability to retrieve content from web pages.
This makes the following prompt possible, for example:
“Can you summarize the content of this webpage: https://freshvanroot.com/blog/best-of-fresh-van-root-newsletter-2022/”
After that, we ask ChatGPT to customize the summary for LinkedIn.
The possibilities are endless here; you can also ask to prepare the blog post as a YouTube script or ask for suggestions to add to the blog post.
“Please rewrite the content of the following blog post as a YouTube script. The YouTube channel is called “Fresh van Root”. A direct approach to the target audience. Web Page: https://freshvanroot.com/blog/best-of-fresh-van-root-newsletter-2022/”
Use ChatGPT for your very specific “niche” question
The examples shown so far are very obvious and understandable. Don’t forget that ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can give you feedback on specific questions.
Generate emojis
You know it: Still quickly choose suitable emojis. Just ask ChatGPT.
Prompt: “Can you give me a combination of emojis representing jumping into the water”?
Localization of social media posts
Do you work for regions where you know all the linguistic peculiarities? Ask ChatGPT before posting.
Prompt: “What do I say as an alternative to “Good Bye” on social media in Scotland?”
Social media account research
Do you want to set up collaborations or find competitors?
Prompt: “Which Instagram accounts should I follow in the outdoor sports sector in German-speaking countries?”
Tip: ChatGPT is fed with data until the end of 2021. So this query can’t know any accounts created since then (and still could be very valuable for your work).
Questions about social media advertising
What ad formats or properties do specific ad formats have on each platform? ChatGPT can be used to take a shortcut to Google Search.
Prompt: What form fields can a LinkedIn lead ad have?
Landing page creation
ChatGPT can also generate HTML code. For example, you can take the content you have created and ask ChatGPT to create a landing page.
—–
There are no limits to your creativity here; ChatGPT knows about all concerns in the social media area. Of course, it doesn’t know anything about the BeReal app, for example.
More ChatGPT Tips
Is it worth upgrading to ChatGPT Plus?
In any case, the free version is sufficient to gain initial experience. Should ChatGPT establish itself as a daily companion, it is worth upgrading to Plus. Especially plugins and faster response times are convincing reasons. In addition, ChatGPT currently has failures again and again, and Plus users get preferential access.
Can I connect ChatGPT directly to my social media publishing tool?
This might be possible in the future via special plugins. But currently, there is another way: Social media publishing tools like Swat.io have already integrated ChatGPT, and you can use AI features without calling ChatGPT itself.
Use ChatGPT as a sparring partner
To remind me that ChatGPT can be wrong, the output delivered unusable, or simply outdated; I always call ChatGPT a “sparring partner”.
Summary
Those who ignore the possibilities of ChatGPT or other AI tools will fall behind the competition in the medium term. This post shows a few very obvious and simple use cases of how social media managers today can use ChatGPT to facilitate or improve their work.
ChatGPT is a perfect tool for generating and editing social media content, producing “Ugly first Drafts” for further editing, or even fine-tuning existing content. It fuels creativity and allows you to accomplish more as a team.